It is true that nobody from Congress or the Executive branch calls Janet Yellen every day to tell her exactly where to set the fed funds target. But that’s pretty much the extent of the Fed’s independence.

There are so many pieces of evidence which prove – and that’s a word I rarely use – the Fed is not really immune to even short-term political pressure that it’s hard know where to start.

First, the Fed is nothing but a creature of Congress – it was created via the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Originally, the Treasury Secretary served on the Federal Reserve Board. It’s pretty hard to argue the Fed was politically independent under that arrangement, which lasted until the 1930s.